QHC weathering flu and more

Quinte Health Care is managing its operations and finances as it enters a year of changes in funding, doctor recruitment and ever-rising numbers of patients, its senior officials say.

The board’s regular meeting Tuesday at Belleville General Hospital began with a change in the board’s senior positions.

Trenton’s Stuart Wright is the new chairman.

He replaces Prince Edward County’s Doug McGregor and will serve until this year’s board election at the annual general meeting in June.

Wright is retired from the telecommunications industry and is a governor and past chairman of Loyalist College, a director of the Loyalist Foundation and of the National Air Force Museum of Canada, as well as a trustee of the museum’s foundation and a former director of the Rotary Club of Trenton.

Treasurer David MacKinnon of Wellington moves into the role of vice-chairman. Belleville’s Karen Baker returns to the treasurer’s position.

The corporation’s fiscal year ends March 31 and the board’s meeting that month is typically reserved for the final vote on the coming year’s budget.

But president and chief executive officer Mary Clare Egberts said after Tuesday’s meeting in Belleville that may not be the case this year. She and her senior staff and board members are among the hospital officials who have pressed Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to change its funding formula for hospitals. In QHC’s case, leaders have said its operation of four smaller hospitals, two of them in rural areas, have put it at a disadvantage in Ontario’s formula.

“In our discussions with the ministry, they make it very clear that there are changes coming forward for the funding formula,” Egberts said.

Details are pending the next provincial budget, she said. Last year’s budget was released April 27 but Finance Minister Charles Sousa has said this year’s could come early because of the June provincial election.

“Should the provincial budget get delayed, then we may have to request a waiver of signing our hospital agreement with the LHIN to await that funding announcement.”

In his final report as treasurer, David MacKinnon said a fiscal-year-end deficit of $576,000 remains possible but management is still trying to balance the finances.

As of Nov. 30, eight months into the fiscal year, the corporation had a deficit of $42,000, or $161,000 worse than predicted, on its $197-million budget. MacKinnon it’s essentially a break-even position.

“We probably won’t know our situation in definitive terms for another couple of months,” said MacKinnon.

He reflected upon his warning to the board more than a year ago about financial pressures facing QHC.

“We have made and are making significant progress in terms of dealing with them,” he said.

MacKinnon said staff stability is important for the future and the accelerating “pace of change” in technology is another hurdle.

“Twenty years ago, some of the most important companies in the world did not exist, or existed in embryonic form,” he said, citing as examples social media pioneers Twitter and Facebook.

“We are in a fourth industrial revolution … and that will be felt in hospitals.”

MacKinnon, the former president of the Ontario Hospital Association, said hospitals face the “huge challenge” of trying to anticipate technological needs — and paying for the new equipment.

But Lynda Mungall, who chairs the board’s quality of patient care committee, said there are also simpler, more immediate demands.

“We have basic technology needs as well,” Mungall said. She spoke of her conversation with a young doctor who reported using a computer keyboard on which the letters were worn away by heavy use and having, with the help of a nurse, plug and unplug power cables to revive the printer.

“The last thing we need to be doing is driving our physicians crazy with these types of things when we’re trying to be recruiting,” Mungall said.

Doctor recruitment remains an ongoing focus. Not only are many parts of the region listed as underserviced for family doctors, but QHC continues to search for specialists.

Chief of staff Dr. Dick Zoutman said QHC needs more than 10 new physicians. (See related story at intelligencer.ca or in Thursday’s print edition). That’s in addition to finding a new chief of staff. Zoutman is leaving in April to be the first chief of staff for the newly-amalgamated Scarborough Rouge Hospital.

Tuesday’s one-hour board meeting dealt mainly with housekeeping matters rather any immediate or major issues.

Egberts said the hospitals are weathering the surge of influenza and other similar illnesses, though it remains a challenge to meet with the increase in patients. Heavy advance planning by staff and doctors, combined with extra surge-specific funding from the province, are helping QHC cope, she said.

“We were given 15 surge beds and a further eight flex beds and they are all full. We do some days when we still have patients waiting in the emerg department.”

The regional 14-bed intensive care unit in Belleville as at times surged to 18 beds, she said.

“Our physicians and our staff are just doing a phenomenal job of dealing with a higher volume of some very sick patients,” said Egberts.

In other QHC news:

• Staff are working to finalize the land severance at Trenton Memorial Hospital in preparation for construction of the Trenton Community Health Hub. The severance is pending final board approval.

• Staff of Belleville’s Quinte 5 medical unit were recognized for months of work to improve the discharge process for patients leaving hospital and for making changes to staff workflows. Vice-president Carol Smith Romeril reported the changes have reduced stress and patients and employees alike are benefitting.

• Belleville porter Vicky Jackson received the night’s other certificate of recognition. As first reported by The Intelligencer in January, she donated part of her liver to a stranger.

• Vice-president Jeff Hohenkerk has been shortlisted for Canadian College of Health Leaders Mentorship Award. He was nominated by Egberts. The winner will be announced in May.

• The next board meeting is March 27 at about 4 p.m. in Belleville General’s education centre.